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Us Against You by Fredrik Backman Series: Beartown, #2 Published by Atria Books on August 21st 2017 Genre: Fiction Format: Hardcover Pages: 448 Challenge Theme: A book set in Scandinavia Buy on Barnes & NobleBuy on Amazon

Synopsis:After everything that the citizens of Beartown have gone through, they are struck yet another blow when they hear that their beloved local hockey team will soon be disbanded. What makes it worse is the obvious satisfaction that all the former Beartown players, who now play for a rival team in Hed, take in that fact. Amidst the mounting tension between the two rivals, a surprising newcomer is handpicked to be Beartown’s new hockey coach.

Soon a new team starts to take shape around Amat, the fastest player you’ll ever see; Benji, the intense lone wolf; and Vidar, a born-to-be-bad troublemaker. But bringing this team together proves to be a challenge as old bonds are broken, new ones are formed, and the enmity with Hed grows more and more acute.

As the big match approaches, the not-so-innocent pranks and incidents between the communities pile up and their mutual contempt grows deeper. By the time the last game is finally played, a resident of Beartown will be dead, and the people of both towns will be forced to wonder if, after all they’ve been through, the game they love can ever return to something simple and innocent.

Review:
I was worried about choosing this book because I LOVED the prequel, Beartown. I thought there was no way I would love this book as much. Well I was wrong. This was just as good as the first book in the series. In Beartown I fell in love with these characters, especially Benji, and was so excited to see where they went in their lives. I absolutely love the way Backman forms a story, his writing makes you feel so many emotions over the course of one novel. You feel angry, heartbroken, happy, sick to your stomach, just to name a few. I also really like the foreshadowing he does in almost every chapter. It gives you insight into the future of the characters & events and it also makes you want to keep reading to see what exactly happens. He teases it enough to peak your interest without giving too much away until the time comes to reveal the whole story. Backman also gives depth to every single character and you find yourself invested in them whether you love them or hate them. He also shows how there is no black or white when it comes to humans. At one point I could not stand William Lyt but by the end he redeemed himself. Everyone is flawed and Backman makes them all relatable. I have no idea if he has plans to write a 3rd novel in this series but I will be the first one to read it if he does. I would love to continue to read what happens to every single one of these characters.

Favorite Quotes:
“He’s twelve years old, and this summer he learns that people will always choose a simple lie over a complicated truth, because the lie has one unbeatable advantage: the truth always has to stick to what actually happened, whereas the lie just has to be easy to believe.”

“The worst thing we know about other people is that we’re dependent upon them. That their actions affect our lives. Not just the people we choose, the people we like, but all the rest of them: the idiots. You who stand in front of us in every line, who can’t drive properly, who like bad television shows and talk too loud in restaurants and whose kids infect our kids with the winter vomiting bug at preschool. You who park badly and steal our jobs and vote for the wrong party. You also influence our lives, every second.”

“The complicated thing about good and bad people alike is that most of us can be both at the same time.”

“Sometimes people have to be allowed to have something to live for in order to survive everything else.”

“At some point almost everyone makes a choice. Some of us don’t even notice it happening, most don’t get to plan it in advance, but there’s always a moment when we take one path instead of another, which has consequences for the rest of our lives. It determines the people we will become, in other people’s eyes as well as our own. Elizabeth Zackell may have been right when she said that anyone who feels responsibility isn’t free. Because responsibility is a burden. Freedom is a pleasure.”

“The truth about most people is as simple as it is unbearable: we rarely want what is best for everyone; we mostly want what’s best for ourselves.”

“Life is a weird thing. We spend all our time trying to manage different aspects of it, yet we are still largely shaped by things that happen beyond our control.”

Beartown by Fredrik Backman Series: Beartown, #1 Published by Simon & Schuster on April 25th 2017 Genre: Fiction Format: Hardcover Pages: 418 Challenge Theme: A book about or involving a sport Buy on Barnes & NobleBuy on Amazon

Synopsis:People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever-encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded town. And that rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior hockey team is about to compete in the national championships, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of the town now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.
A victory would send star player Kevin onto a brilliant professional future in the NHL. It would mean everything to Amat, a scrawny fifteen-year-old treated like an outcast everywhere but on the ice. And it would justify the choice that Peter, the team’s general manager, and his wife, Kira, made to return to his hometown and raise their children in this beautiful but isolated place.
Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semifinal match is the catalyst for a violent act that leaves a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Hers is a story no one wants to believe since the truth would mean the end of the dream. Accusations are made, and like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

Review:
Never have a I loved a book so much that made me so angry. First glance this book is about hockey but it is about so much more than that. From the first chapter I was hooked. I mean how can you not get instantly hooked when a book starts by saying “Late one evening toward the end of March, a teenager picked up a double-barreled shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else’s forehead, and pulled the trigger. This is the story of how we got there.” I mean HELLO! That is probably one of the best first chapters I have ever read. Short and simple yet pulls the reader in instantly. This is a completely different book than A Man Called Ove so if you are expecting a book like Ove you may be disappointed. In fact it is on the exact opposite spectrum.

I don’t want to give too much away but this book is a must read. It will make you extremely angry, especially if you are a woman, but it is worth it. I come from a baseball family, my father played professionally, so I know all about “locker room talk” and all that entails. This book accurately portrays the entitlement that some star athletes have. It is infuriating but unfortunately is forgiven a lot, especially in places where that sport is a big part of the culture of that town. Just be prepared to want to scream at some of these characters and their choices.

Sorry for all the quotes. I told you I loved this book! Ha!

Favorite Quotes:
“Hate can be a deeply stimulating emotion. The world becomes easier to understand and much less terrifying if you divide everything and everyone into friends and enemies, we and they, good and evil. The easiest way to unite a group isn’t through love, because love is hard, It makes demands. Hate is simple. So the first thing that happens in a conflict is that we choose a side, because that’s easier than trying to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. The second thing that happens is that we seek out facts that confirm what we want to believe – comforting facts, ones that permit life to go on as normal. The third is that we dehumanize our enemy.”

“Never trust people who don’t have something in their lives that they love beyond all reason.”

“All adults have days when we feel completely drained. When we no longer know quite what we spend so much time fighting for, when reality and everyday worries overwhelm us and we wonder how much longer we’re going to be able to carry on. The wonderful thing is that we can all live through far more days like that without breaking than we think. The terrible thing is that we never know exactly how many.”

“Another morning comes. It always does. Time always moves at the same rate, only feelings have different speeds. Every day can mark a whole lifetime or a single heartbeat, depending on who you spend it with.”

“What an uncomfortable, terrible source of shame it is for the world that the victim is so often the one left with the most empathy for others.”

“You never have the sort of friends you have when you’re fifteen ever again. Even if you keep them for the rest of your life, it’s never the same as it was then.”

“Bitterness can be corrosive. It can rewrite your memories as if it were scrubbing a crime scene clean, until in the end you only remember what suits you of its causes.”

“There are few words that are harder to explain than “loyalty.” It’s always regarded as a positive characteristic, because a lot of people would say that many of the best things people do for each other occur precisely because of loyalty. The only problem is that many of the very worst things we do to each other occur because of the same thing.”

“She is told all the things she shouldn’t have done: She shouldn’t have waited so long before going to the police. She shouldn’t have gotten rid of the clothes she was wearing. Shouldn’t have showered. Shouldn’t have drunk alcohol. Shouldn’t have put herself in that situation. Shouldn’t have gone into the room, up the stairs, given him the impression. If only she hadn’t existed, then none of this would have happened, why didn’t she think of that?”

“The very worst events in life have that effect on a family: we always remember, more sharply than anything else, the last happy moments before everything fell apart.”

“Anything that grows closely enough to what it loves will eventually share the same roots. We can talk about loss, we can treat it and give it time, but biology still forces us to live according to certain rules: plants that are split down the middle don’t heal, they die.”